Like Pavlov's dog, the mainstream media slobbers platitudes
every time North Korea launches another test missile. Listening to the blather one would think that
once Kim Jong-un has a missile capable of reaching the US, he is going to use
it in an unprovoked nuclear attack on the US mainland killing millions of Americans.

For Kim to attack the US he would have to be insane, paranoid,
and suicidal. Top officials in the US
intelligence agencies say he is not. Director
of Intelligence Dan Coats has said publicly
that Kim is acting very rational; the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says
that Kim is "not
insane "; the CIA deputy director of the Korea Mission Center,
Yong Suk Lee, says that Kim is not suicidal, either. So we can rest with ease that Kim Jong-un is highly
unlikely to wake up one morning and nuke America because he can. According to Yong, Kim "wants to rule for a long time and die peacefully in his own bed."[CNN,
October 6, 2017]. Everyone
in the mainstream media knows this or should.

North Korea is not an existential threat to the US
national security. Occasionally the mainstream media does tell the truth, but
that does not sell news, or make the military-industrial-security-complex,
neocons, and others in the Deep State happy.
Instead the mainstream media tell us about the latest war of words and
weapon tests, usually instigated by the US, which the media does not tell us. The word-war is exacerbated every time the US threatens, insults and mocks Kim.

The US regularly practices nuclear attacks on North Korea
by air, land and sea which also get a propaganda response from Kim. North Korea has offered to stop testing
nuclear bombs, if the US would stop playing nuclear war games on its border [The
Guardian]. The US has been
threatening North Korea for over 70 years.

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What should frighten the American people is the long
history of US crazies who would start a nuclear war. President Trump is not the first president
that cannot be trusted with nuclear bombs.
It is only by sheer luck that the world has escaped a nuclear war or a
cataclysmic nuclear accident. There have
been many close calls, and one day there will be one too many.

The US keeps gambling away with nuclear roulette anyway, threatening
North Korea, Iran, Russia, and the enemy du
jour. One of the favorite US verbal
threats is to say that "all options are on the table", that includes nuclear, but the diplomacy option
is usually missing. The US has even used
nuclear bombs twice against civilian populations in 1945, and according to many
historians unnecessarily, because Japan had already offered to surrender. Hundreds
of thousands of Japanese died mostly so that Harry Truman could try to impress Joseph
Stalin with a show of US power.

During the Korean War (1950 to 1953) President Truman
publicly threatened to use the atomic bomb, and the military planned, practiced
and shipped nuclear bombs to Asia to be dropped on North Korea. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to use 26
nuclear bombs and start a war with China too [History News Network]. Truman did give General Matthew Ridgeway
pre-authorization to use nuclear bombs, even after MacArthur was relieved of his
command. Instead the US
completely destroyed North Korea with conventional bombs and
napalm, killing an estimated 20% to 30% of the population "anyway, someway or another, direct casualties of war, or from
starvation and exposure" [Air Force General Curtis LeMay].

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The Korean War is called the "Forgotten War" for reasons: the US was humiliated and lost the Korean
War; over 50,000 Americans were killed as negotiating chips, they "died for a
tie" as to where to draw the Military Demarcation Line between the North and
South; and South Korea was "destroyed to save it".

The South Koreans deserve a lot of credit for rebuilding
a modern highly advanced society in all categories such as education,
healthcare, technology, and their standard of living. But contrary to propaganda mythology they did
not develop under capitalist free-trade and democracy. The South Korean "miracle on the Han river"
was achieved under US backed military dictatorship, a highly planned economy, and
billions of dollars from US aid, loans and direct investment. ["Bad
Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism",
by Ha-Joon Chang].

Kim Jong-un has very good reasons to fear US
threats. He knows that the US is
ruthless enough to kill millions of his people and destroy his country, just as
the US did in Iraq and Libya. Senator
John McCain's daughter Meghan McCain even said on Fox news that the US should
assassinate the "Crazy
Fat Kid". Words like
that, Trump's insults, threats and nuclear war games are going to get bombastic verbal
reactions by Kim Jong-un, and cause him to redouble his nuclear and missile
programs. [The
Nation].

While the US constantly talks about a denuclearized
Korean peninsula, it is the US that first nuclearized it, starting with President
Harry Truman's threats in 1951. Then in
July of 1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower unilaterally withdrew from section
13(d) of the 1953 Armistice Agreement, which made the introduction of any new weapon systems in the Korean peninsula forbidden to both sides. The US broke the promise so that it could "equip U.S. forces in Korea with modern
weapons;"dual capability (nuclear-conventional) weapons, such as the Honest
John and the 280 mm. cannon", i.e. tactical nuclear weapons [National
Security Council Report].
All during the rest of the Cold War the US stationed at least 950
nuclear weapons in South Korea. The US may have withdrawn its nuclear weapons
from South Korea in 1991 as it says, but it still has plenty in Guam and
elsewhere that it uses to constantly threaten North Korea with a nuclear attack.

While the mainstream media ponders how to get North Korea
to sit down at the negotiating table, it is the US that refuses to talk. North Korea has often offered to
sign a permanent peace treaty and non-aggression agreement, but the US has
consistently rebuffed the offers. The State Department has repeatedly said in news
conferences that it will not negotiate with North Korea unless they meet
unspecified preconditions first [US
Department of State].
What is puzzling is what the preconditions are, and how to get the US to
sit down at the table. Incredibly the US and the media constantly repeat that it is North Korea that refuses to talk!

Unless there is a diplomatic solution, Kim Jong-un is rationally
following in his father's footsteps by developing a credible nuclear deterrent
against US aggression. In 2000 President
George W. Bush scoffed at President Clinton's nuclear agreement with North
Korea, and then he intensified threats in 2002 with his "Axis of Evil" speech. Bush followed that speech by invading Iraq in
2003 with "Shock and Awe", leaving the cradle of human civilization in ruins,
and later hanging Saddam Hussein.

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Bush did not plan to stop with Iraq. General Wesley Clark says that he was told at
the Pentagon that Bush planned to invade 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
and Iran [YouTube]. It is the US that has been paranoid,
unpredictable and insane during the 21stcentury, and it did not
start with Trump, but he takes prides in acting more insane.

After the initial US invasion of Iraq, a smug looking Bush
got out of the passenger seat of a fighter jet that the pilot had landed on the
USS Abraham Lincoln. He strutted over to
the microphone in his flight suit and gave a premature "Mission Accomplished"
speech. Lisa
Schiffren gushed in the Wall Street Journal that Bush's
performance made him look hot and sexy in his flight suit, adding with admiration that
Bush is "credible as a Commander in Chief".
The mainstream media has been the cheerleader for all of the Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton and Kerry wars.
They are now inciting the US public with propaganda for war with North
Korea, Iran and Russia.

David is a progressive columnist writing on economic, political and social issues. His articles have been published by The Greanville Post, The Real News Network, Truth Out, Consortium News, OpEdNews, Pravda, Russia Insider and many other (more...)